1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for engineering communications traffic.
2. Description of Related Art
Modern communications networks transport large volumes of information between various locations in a network. Unfortunately, the traffic across any particular link in a given communications network can represent a considerable volume of information; and as the network transports increasingly more traffic, congestion across various links may cause delays in data delivery. Further, link failures and subsequent rerouting may contribute to network link congestion.
Presently, most conventional network routing protocols, such as OSPF (Open Shortest Path First), use a shortest path first routing scheme to alleviate network congestion and otherwise manage network traffic. Unfortunately, these protocol systems lack versatility, as the process of determining alternate paths upon the occurrence of network link failure or link congestion is often excessively time consuming, and the performance of the resulting traffic flow has been difficult to gauge. Thus, new technology to manage networks is desirable.